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Best Short Courses ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6154 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 11 12 July 2013 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Occasionally we may need to cover a language quickly, and just grasp the basics. I'm thinking about the A0 to A1 language level. What short, or beginners, courses do you think are the best ? My nominations would be as follows,
Teach Yourself Russian Grammar - I found this short grammar book to give the best quick coverage of Russian I've seen. It probably goes to about A2\B1 in terms of grammar. Elizabeth Smith Fast Portuguese - This series has recently been re-branded as the Elizabeth Smith Travellers series. I used this a long time ago, and it got me near A1 in a fairly short time. They're designed to be used over a six week period. The courses are decent for the Romance languages, but the Russian and Greek don't teach the alphabet. Not good. What others would you nominate ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 2 of 11 12 July 2013 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I sort of liked Elisabeth Smith's Fast French, but never did finish it. I think it is a pretty good introduction, but I think it underestimates the time it will take to complete it (e.g. you are to learn a set of 90 vocab words in 30 minutes).
My favourite quick course is the TY X Conversation audio courses, rebranded as Speak X with Confidence (they are both identical as far as I can see). In three CDs they cover a fair bit of the language in a very practical way, with a strong focus on material for travellers. I've used the Hindi, French and German versions, and found the Hindi to be the best of the three by far. They have been updated and expanded as "Get Talking X" and "Keep Talking X"... in this case it's not a simple rebranding but still uses most of the same recorded dialogues. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 11 12 July 2013 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I did a couple chapters of the FSI FAST course for Italian, plus Michel Thomas, and it
was perfect for a rapid introduction. My Sister did Speak Spanish with Confidence and really liked it 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4718 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 4 of 11 12 July 2013 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I tried Michel Thomas and loved it.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 5 of 11 13 July 2013 at 1:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I suppose "short" is a relative term. The Elisabeth Smith "Fast" courses are supposed to take you 21 hours. The FSI FAST courses are supposed to take 300. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 6 of 11 13 July 2013 at 2:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
How's that possible? I just looked at my Italian - 30 lessons (though I only did about six), with ten to fifteen minutes of audio each. I don't think I spent more than an hour or two on each lesson - there certainly isn't enough there for ten hours per lesson. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 7 of 11 13 July 2013 at 10:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I got the hours from the "To the Teacher" section of FAST French, which has 40 chapters and 625 pages. But remember also that this is not a course designed for self-study. There are exercises to write in the book, exercises to do as a class, 3-4 pages of homework exercises, and several sets of exercises to do with your teacher. The book was designed to be taught by an FSI teacher. I imagine they are very throrough lessons. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| JCTranslator Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4138 days ago 19 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, Mandarin, Italian, French Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 11 01 August 2013 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have used Michel Thomas to get my foot in the door and I must say it is effective, but the lack of a written element is detrimental, especially if you have a more visual memory.
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